Learn, Practice, Use! 2013–2016
IBM Think Academy Platform
2013–2016
Since joining IBM in 2013, I worked on the THINK Academy platform, which was IBM’s highly successful internal communications and training tool. It allowed IBM employees to quickly catch up on the company’s latest news and strategic initiatives, and learn with various training materials, along with opportunities to interact with various IBM communities. It was one of the main communications channel for the CEO Ginni Rometty to quickly connect with employees and steer the large global company.
Phase 1
In September 2013, after an intense design and development period, released the company's premier learning platform for the 400k employees. Since then, the platform had published new topics every month, each comprising reading, watching, practicing, as well as social and quiz modules.
Phase 2
After two years of running the main learning platform, the team had identified a new opportunity to expand the experience and help users learn better and easier.
I was part of the team through both phases and played multiple roles. This is a case study focusing on the second phase.
THINK Academy Minutes
Learning on the go
After 2 years of developing and running the learning platform, the team sat down, took a look at where we were and how users were responding. Looking at the analytical data, user feedbacks, and learning performance data, the team asked the following questions:
- How can we help IBM employees learn more?
- Can our learning modules be easier?
- How do we handle different types of users/learners?
- Is there anything we can use in the modern technologies
Painpoints after 2 years
Through the first phase of the platform, the team constantly conducted user surveys, collected analytical data. After analysing the data we had, we identified the following major user personas, each with its own pain goals, learning types, and pain points:
The concept: a complementary mobile app
In order to address the main pain points and make the learning modules more accessible to IBM employees, the team held multiple brain-storming sessions.
The result was an idea for a new companion app that would focus on the following aspects of the training:
Features
- Provide ways to learn in one's own learning style.
- Catch up on key concepts and fast facts quickly.
- Find the most relevant stuff right at the top of your feed.
- Check your ability with interactive games and quizzes.
- Connect with an expert at a tap of a button.
- Join the conversation and share your ideas.
- See how other IBMers are applying what they learn.
- Save useful “cards” to come back to when you need them.
- Designed to make learning intuitive and fun – from podcasts to images to videos.
Interaction
- Designed to make learning and engagement simple, seamless and fun.
- Tap to go deeper. Swipe to go further. It’s that simple.
- A marker on the screen orients where you are and informs how much you have to go.
- Listen to audio, watch video, answer questions and make learning fun by playing interactive games.
- Saving and sharing functions are simple and intuitive
Iteration X
Swipe, Tap, Learn!
How can we make this new app experiences as easy as possible for the busy and diverse users?
After a quick survey of popular apps among IBM Employees, we identified the following concepts the answer the above question:
The Hallway: continuing the conversation beyond the platform
In order to create a more effective learning experiences that continue even after an IBMer finishes a module, the team decided to tap into the social aspect—The Hallway is a concept based on how IBMers may continue connecting with each other around THINK Academy topics in a more natural and engaging way.
Two to three light weight, humorous, and sharable assets were created for the THINK Academy topic each month. Thesse were uploaded to THINK Academy platform as a break in the learning flow.
These social tiles were also shared via the company's intranet platforms and emails. These were also used in promotional poster designs.
I co-authored and illustrated these assets.Roles: Creative Director, Sr. Designer, Illustrator
THINK Academy Outcomes
* The reports on the right were captued in May 2016
THINK Academy was generally considered one of the most successful corporate internal MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses). At its peak, over 93% participation was recorded.
97
countries
34
courses
11
languages
93%
participation
95%
completion
10M
video views
8M
visites
1M
YouTube video views
450k+
Asset downloads
156k
quizzes taken
81/100
Avg. score
80k
App downloads
68k+
Social engagement
- Ragan’s 2016 Employee Communications Awards
- PR Daily's 2016 Video Awards
